Beauty and the briefcase

Year of release : 2010

Run time : 1h26m

Genre : Romance / Comedy

Cast : Hillary Duff, Jaime Pressly

The movie is based on the 2004 novel "The diary of a working girl" by Daniella Brodsky.

Lane wants to write for Cosmopolitan and is also looking for her perfect man, who has to check 10 things on her list (ridiculous things). She seems to keep on meeting women who found the perfect man, while she dreams of hers.

Her friend, who is a photographer, gets her a pitch meeting with Cosmopolitan, but the primary editor of the magazine is not impressed, until they start talking about men and how hard it's to find their dream man (she also has a check list).

So, the Cosmo editor tells her to go into the business world to find a man. The perfect man.

She creates a perfect CV listing she knows many foreign languages, and knows how to do many things, while she knows nothing. About to fail the computer exam, she drops water on the socket, and the power goes off.

She gets hired without the exam (such professionalism!) and instead of doing her best to fit in, she spends her time doing nothing but daydreaming, checking men out, annoying me.

She starts dating guy after guy, because apparently they all like her. But they don't check her ridiculous list, so, she doesn't like any.

While out with her friend, she meets Liam who speaks with a British accent. Liam says he used to be a guitarist, and is now a music producer. She seems to like him a lot, and keeps on dating him as he seems to be her perfect man, although the Cosmo editor tells her to drop him.

I personally didn't quite enjoy it, as the leading character is shallow and unlikeable. She has the most stupid things on her list, instead of having interesting things like for him to love her, for them to be best friends, to have things in common, she has things like - to play a sexy instrument (apparently the harmonica is one!), to have a sexy accent, to be spontaneous, to travel to exotic locations on a whim...give "witty statements on the tip of his tongue" or something..

She keeps on customizing her desk, to the point she puts a beads door curtain to her desk!

I don't know how she keeps her job, as she's very bad at it, doing nothing but dating.

I didn't like how they even put her picture on the Cosmopolitan cover, as if they'd do that in real life! Lane is not a model! I think it might have been a real Cosmopolitan Hillary Duff cover!

I didn't find any of the men attractive.

The movie is an ABC Family production, and has ads for another ABC Family movie " 10 things I hate about you" strategically placed on the street.

The movie felt like a rip off of "How to lose a guy in 10 days" but worse. That was a 5 stars, this is a 2 at best.

The acting was fine.

I didn't like the soundtrack, which was a generic chick-lit one.

Rating : Could have been a contender !